I find it extremely frustrating to continue talking to people who wish to impose their views on you all the while claiming that is what you are doing to them. Isn’t that the idea of a debate? To present your views through FACTS that back up the information you are relaying. It is painfully obvious that a LOT of people don’t understand what debate is or how it works.

You know it never fails that in cases where bigotry and or racism are concerned all of a sudden people have these thoughts that there are so many gray areas and middle grounds everywhere. How can there be a gray area when you are telling someone that you don’t believe they should have the same rights as you. How can telling someone that their choices are illegitimate while your choices are right and therefore deserving of certain privileges or rights?

How can this thinking be anything but WRONG? How does any sane non bigoted person come to the conclusion that the jury is still out on whether or not a person should be endowed with all of the rights granted to every adult in this country? But this is what you have to constantly converse with when writing about instances of bigotry and hatred.

Of course its narrow mindedness which causes people to think that somehow they should have any say on whether two people who are adults, consenting, and law abiding citizens should be able to do what every citizen in this country is allowed to do just by having a different sexual view. And then have the nerve to say that this is democracy. Democracy isn’t about being able to vote away peoples rights. Give me a break.

Hmm, now that you think about it of course biased people think there is a middle ground. Just like I am sure you can find a ton of racist people who believe that there is a middle ground as to whether or not black people or Jews should have the same access to rights in this country.

Yet, people wish to call YOU something stupid like “Bush” because you are pointing out the obvious. If a person were to say that Jews shouldn’t have the right to vote simply because they don’t worship Jesus like Christian people, they would be labeled a hater or a bigot. And that would be damn freaking right. What is so hard to understand about that? I am just guessing that hatred or bigotry must tinker with your intelligence.

Yet, show a bigot that denying a person the right to marry is no different than denying a person to vote, drive, work, live, or the right to any other right granted to ALL people in this country and YOU have the problem. And then to have the gall to actually then tell you that there are a lot of other people who have their rights abused as if that makes it OK.

There isn’t one reason other than bigotry that a person can give as to why thinking that one segment of the population that fits ALL the same criteria as every one else in the population except who they choose to love would not be able to have the same rights as everyone else.

But we all know that most bigots are extremely touchy about being called out. Not only do they not wish to explain why one segment of the population doesn’t deserve the same rights but they continue to yell over and over about the same lame ass tidbit that they feel justifies their stupidity; yet, never qualifying these tidbits with anything. As if just saying it over and over is the key to making it realistic. Wasn’t that what the Bush Administration did to push the Iraq war? Repeat a lie often enough and the stupid of the bunch will buy it. Sorry I’m not the one.

4 responses to “Opposition To Equal Rights Is Bigotry”

I used to believe that people were stupid, until I realized that I was assuming that everyone thought as I do. I had assumed that the Enlightenment thinkers were right — you give people evidence for accepting your/a position, and they will reason towards the correct answer. I didn’t realize that it is not that simple. Everyone comes to her own conclusion through her particular point of view. I discovered that if I want to sway a person’s point of view, that I have to stop assuming the worst about them (they’re stupid) and see the world as they do. sometimes we have to work with people to help them see the right way, which usually means helping them to let go of their fear of change .It doesn’t work all the time, but at the very least I let go of my assumed superiority. I have to remind myself that the conversation doesn’t go far if I start with assuming that because the other person disagrees with me, that they lack the capacity to reason.

While I agree, fervently, with the entire post, the likening to the lie that is the Iraq War truly spoke to me. Having deployed before, decrying the war and our participation in it before I even went, and come home afterwards all the more disgusted by it, I find the propensity to tell lies such as these is often based in the human desire to retain that which is comfortable. As a whole, Americans are more comfortable believing their President won’t lie to them simply because he wants to wage a war for shits and giggles. Sadly, this desire to step outside their comfort zone far too frequently prevents them from seeing the truth of their own prejudice as well. It’s much easier just to pretend that their ‘prejudice’ is not ‘prejudice’ but rather a desire for ‘normalcy.’ What they don’t realize is their propensity to label themselves as ‘normal’ is not only prejudicial, but an even greater lie than the one that landed us in Iraq.